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National Geographic : 1936 Mar
Contents
THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE rails, you can see how the railroad, first with its crude wooden trestles, scattered bridges across America. As westward migration rose to millions, the use of fords and ferries dwindled and bridges multi plied, sometimes not without local disputes. ABRAHAM LINCOLN ATTORNEY FOR MISSISSIPPI BRIDGE BUILDERS When the first railroad bridge was started over the Mississippi at Davenport, Iowa, steamboat men enjoined its building as a "nuisance" to navigation! Abraham Lin coln, lawyer, argued the case for the rail way-and the bridge was built. "He is crazy!" men said of James B. Eads when he sought to build the largest steel-arch bridge of its time over the Mis sissippi at St. Louis. Doubters sniffed at Eads' use of pneumatic caissons for bridge pier foundations. "I told you so," they said, when the first two half-arches ap proached their junction at mid-span and failed by a few inches to fit. "Pack the arch in ice," ordered Eads. The metal shrank and the ends dropped into place. The same taunts of ignorance were flung at John A. Roebling and his Brooklyn Bridge. "Men cannot work like spiders," these critics said. "They cannot spin giant cables from fine wires high in air." Roebling died before the task was done, but his monument is the bridge that spans East River. In the half century since its completion, amazing advance has been made in the design, materials, foundations, and erection methods of bridge engineering. And there is speed! It took more than ten years to build the Brooklyn Bridge. Greater structures are built now in one third the time. When opened in 1883, Roebling's Brooklyn Bridge was called one of the "Wonders of the World." Now the George Washington Bridge over the Hud son at New York has a span of 3,500 feet more than twice that of the Brooklyn Bridge. And the new Golden Gate Bridge spans 4,200 feet! Our American bridges were all built yesterday, as the Old World counts time. Except that American Indians laid flimsy bridges of poles over narrow streams and sometimes sent a crowd of squaws to test a new bridge to see if it would sustain the tribe's horses, we have little of the lore, the traditions, and superstitions which cling to ancient bridges of Europe and the East. It is even hard for us to imagine that the Caravan Bridge in Smyrna may be 3,000 years old; that Homer wrote verse in near by caves, or that St. Paul passed over this bridge on his way to preach! Or that Xerxes, the Persian king, bridged the Greek straits more than 400 years before Christ. Then, tasting grief even as Eads and Roeb ling, he saw a storm destroy it, so that he had to order the rough waters to be lashed and cursed by his official cursers, while he executed his first bridge crew and set an other gang at the task. Reading the papers, it was easy for us to learn all about the International Bridge over the Rio Grande between El Paso and Juarez, when President Taft walked out on it to shake hands with President Diaz of Mexico. Later, by radio, we heard the Prince of Wales, now King Edward VIII, and the diplomats speak when the Niagara Peace Bridge opened to let Americans and Cana dians mingle in friendly commerce. It takes more imagination to picture the opening of the famous Pons Sublicius, built across the Tiber some six centuries be fore Christ. Horatius, you remember, held that bridge, with two fighting companions, against the whole army of Lars Porsena! No radio, then; but what a big moment for a good broadcaster if there had been one! What a chance to describe the steady tramp of the oncoming Etruscans, their final assault, the desperate defense by Horatius, the Romans cutting the bridge behind him, and his final escape by swimming! Myths and superstitions linger about many bridges. Since people often die in floods, the Romans looked on a bridge as an infringement on the rights of the river gods to take their toll. Hence, human be ings first, then effigies, were thrown into the flooded Tiber by priests, while vestals sang to appease the river gods. In parts of China today a live pig or other animal is so sac rificed when rising floods threaten a bridge. Turkish folklore reveals this same idea. In his book, Dar Ul Islam, Sir Mark Sykes records this legend of a bridge under con struction which had fallen three times. "This bridge needs a life," said the work men. "And the master saw a beautiful girl, accompanied by a bitch and her puppies, and he said, 'We will give the first life that comes by.' But the dog and her little ones hung back, so the girl was built alive into the bridge, and only her hand with a gold bracelet upon it was left outside." It was Peter of Colechurch, a monk in charge of the "Brothers of the Bridge," who built the Old London Bridge. It was a queer 392
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